Fifty Glimpses
by Trinity Day
Summary: Fifty glimpses into the life of one Lily Evans Potter.


I normally don't post things like this (ie, drabbles, ficlets and other short and random things) to ff.n, but this one got a good response at Livejournal, and I kinda like it, so here you are. It was written for 1character, a challenge where you write one sentence about a given character for each of the fifty words listed. This is the result.

Posted: Tuesday, April 25, 2006

**Fifty Glimpses of Lily Evans Potter**

**Touch**  
"Magic really is real," Lily breathed after tentative fingers reached out and touched the sole burning gladiolus; the proof was in the pain.

**Belief**  
Lily's parents remembered all those things that just hadn't made sense, and they were inclined to believe this stranger and her fantastic story.

**Vanilla**  
"I hate vanilla!" Lily shrieked, pounding her hands and feet on the ground, never once noticing that her ice cream cone was now chocolate-flavored.

**Moth**  
Lily and Petunia fell asleep amongst the old moth-eaten fur coats, in a wardrobe that had been closed behind them despite repeated warnings to never lock oneself in a wardrobe, and while neither of the giggling girls felt disappointed when they didn't wake up in another world, the same could not be said for when a most peculiar letter arrived for Lily four years later.

**Speak**  
Her first two weeks at Hogwarts, Lily Evans stayed quiet, until she realized that yes, she knew the answers, and no, she wasn't too scared to speak out in class even if she was just Muggleborn.

**Shine**  
"Her hair's brighter than a fire," Sirius Black staged-whispered to his new friend; James Potter decided to prove him wrong by actually setting fire to Evans' hair.

**Spoon**  
Balancing a spoon on your nose was an unknown trick in the wizarding world, but certainly won an eleven-year old Muggleborn lots of friends, despite its simplicity.

**Ways and Means**  
"Watch me," Lily Evans said when they told her that Muggleborns didn't have the talents, the connections or the fortitude to thrive in the wizarding world.

**Forest**  
"Fine, I'll go into the Forbidden Forest tonight—alone—and show you all!"

**Ornament**  
While Lily knew that passing off her failed Transfiguration test as a gift for Petunia wasn't the nicest of things, she truly and honestly hadn't expected it to turn back into a beetle when her sister opened it.

**Chocolate**  
Every witch gets struck by PMT in her own way, but Lily was convinced that there was someone out there who planned it and was laughing at the fact that the only thing her monthlies interfered with was her ability to summon chocolates and other sweets.

**Linger**  
If she stayed a little longer than necessary after their meeting, just talking with James about nothing in particular, than neither of them noticed—not even James, who had been chasing after her for years.

**Archway**  
The first kiss Lily stole from James was under an archway on the Hogwarts grounds; the last in their son's doorway.

_**Coup de foudre**  
_Lily never remembered the words she said in her panic, just her fear, her intent and the aftermath.

**Cold**  
"I can warm you up," James said, wagging his eyebrows suggestively while Lily tried to decide whether it was a better to ignore him or flip him off.

**Rose**  
It vexed Lily to no ends that she preferred something as common and clichéd as roses; at least, she consoled herself, she was saved from the horror of having lilies as her favourite flower.

**Fate**  
Lily didn't believe in fate, but hated the Longbottoms anyway.

**Appetite**  
Her lack of appetite was the fourth thing she noticed was wrong and the final thing that made her seek out a pregnancy test.

**Pulse**  
Her pulse quickening, Lily didn't know if she was more scared by the prospect of a negative or a positive result.

**Venom**  
Normally Lily had no compunction against potions with Doxy venom in them, but since it might not just be herself she was harming, Lily went to a Muggle pharmacy for the pregnancy test.

**Perfect**  
It was perfect, except James was gone and they were so young and Lily didn't know what she was doing and a war was waging and she was all alone and oh my God, she was going to have a baby.

**Two**  
Lily had always heard that it was possible to kill two birds with one stone, but wished vainly that she hadn't learned it was also possible to kill two people with one curse.

**Mask**  
The first time she saw Voldemort's followers, their masks terrified her.

**Need**  
"I don't need to know everything about you to like you, but I do if you want me to trust you, Remus," she told the unresponsive boy.

**Drunk**  
It took three bottles of wine for Sirius and Lily to get along—three bottles of wine and two secrets that should probably not have been spoken.

**Bribe**  
"If you're going to bribe me, at least offer something more appetizing than blood-flavoured lollies," Lily said coolly, purposely ignoring the implications of Sirius' choice of sweets.

**Vapor**  
"Try not to breathe in the vapors," Slughorn warned right after Lily took a big whiff and started to cough—and grow horns.

**Rope**  
Lily was convinced that there was some trickery involved in her finally agreeing to a date with Potter, but try as she might, she couldn't figure out how he'd done it, and try as she might, she couldn't get that conviction to keep her from enjoying herself.

**Summer**  
"I'm beginning to think that I'm a highly unusual girl in many ways, because as much as I love summer, I couldn't wait for it to be over and to come back to school," Lily told her fellow prefect when they met on the Hogwarts Express.

**Error**  
"Only 'errors in judgement' shouldn't fucking kill your own colleague, your friend!"

**Gloves**  
It only took Lily a few minutes to realize why her sister wasn't wearing gloves despite the cold weather; after all, Lily had also chosen to go bare-handed in order to show off her new ring.

**Envelope**  
Petunia never forgave Lily for the Howler.

**Mirror**  
Lily had gotten used to just about everything else that was different about the magical world, but having her reflection talk back at her when she looked into a mirror would always be disturbing.

**Vine**  
At first, Lily was too caught up in dodging the curses being thrown every which way to notice the green crawling about her feet.

**Butterfly**  
Butterflies creeped Lily out, but she knew her husband too well to admit it; he might have settled down since Hogwarts—and there was no doubting that he loved her—but none of that would prevent Lily from waking one morning and finding her room covered in the beasts if she ever let slip her fear.

**Candy**  
She couldn't stand Potter, but that didn't mean that Lily was going to let a perfectly good box of Sugar Quills go to waste.

**Photograph**  
"No, the bloody photograph doesn't move," Lily said the fifth time that day, wishing once again that wizards didn't find the most commonplace of Muggle things to be so extraordinary.

**Crossroads**  
"Lily," Dumbledore said pleasantly after they had both settled into chairs in his office, "Have you ever heard of the Order of the Phoenix?"

**Refrain**  
"But you can't choose your family," Lily and Sirius chimed in together, knowing that part of the refrain by heart.

**Family**  
"But you choose me—us—we're now a family," James said thoughtfully.

**Medicine**  
When she turned her back on Harry for _just one minute_ and then saw him beside the empty bottle, Lily finally realized that Muggles had the right idea when making their medicine taste bad.

**Wind**  
The vines were wound around her neck, choking her, but desperation allowed Lily to call out the spell and save her own life.

**Balloon**  
Lily first realized she was in love with James when she saw his look of boyish joy at the sight of balloon animals being made the Muggle way.

**Smoke**  
After the smoke cleared, Lily saw the bodies and felt too sick to even vomit.

**Illumination**  
Their wedding day was bright and sunny and their wedding night was full of fireworks (literal fireworks, provided by a certain best man to no one's great surprise).

**Remain**  
"You're not being left behind, Lily, you're protecting our son," James tried to reassure his wife.

**Fresh**  
"But I just changed your nappy," Lily said as she and her newborn son competed to see who could cry the loudest.

**Grieve**  
Lily sat at the kitchen table with her father, who looked older and feebler and just lost, and she knew that he wasn't going to be apart from her mother for much longer.

**Tea**  
Dumbledore offered James and Lily tea before telling them about the prophecy.

**Memory**  
Lily remembered too late why Sirius was the one she and James trusted to be their Secret Keeper.


End file.
